On September 23, 1589, three English seminarians,
Richard Hill,
John Hogg, and
Richard Holiday, all natives of Yorkshire, were ordained to the
priesthood together in Laon, France. In March of 1590, they embarked for England together with a fourth priest, (Blessed) Edmund Duke (commemorated in the May 2004 Magnificat), in order to
minister to their
Catholic countrymen suffering
persecution under Queen
Elizabeth I. As the four were traveling across northern England, they were arrested and sent to a prison in Durham. Here, they ably refuted several Protestant ministers who had come to debate with them. All four priests were sentenced to death by hanging, drawing, and quartering. At their execution, four criminals condemned to die with them professed the
Catholic faith before dying. There was so much sympathy for the martyrs among the onlookers that virtually no one shouted the customary salute, "God save the queen," as the priests' severed heads were shown to the crowd. Two Protestant onlookers, Robert Maire and his wife Grace, were so moved by the priests' courage that they both became Catholics.